Police received a call at 12:20 a.m. Sept. 14 about a crash at St. Isidore’s Catholic Student Center. Ashley Tokoi, public information officer for the Riley County Police Department, said a white Mazda was traveling westbound on Anderson Avenue and “attempted to make a right-hand turn from Anderson to Denison.”
“He ended up hitting the curb going across the sidewalk and hit the stone and metal wall at St. Isidore’s church,” Tokoi said. “… he was arrested for DUI.”
No injuries were reported.
Luke McCaulley, sophomore in management information systems and member of St. Isidore’s, said the damages were mostly confined to one pillar.
“So there was a pine tree that pretty much got completely taken out and the left pillar, like when you walk inside the courtyard, all of the stone around the metal frame had been broken off,” McCaulley said. “So if you were to drive past right now you’d just see a metal spring with all the grits gone out because we cleaned it up right after that. But aside from that one pillar, there’s honestly not a lot of noticeable exterior damage [aside] from that one pillar.”
Anthony Clennan, sophomore in electrical engineering, said several members of the church showed up to help with the cleanup.
“I wasn’t at St Isidore’s when the crash happened,” Clennan said. “I was sitting in my house with just a couple of my roommates and one of my buddies just was like, ‘Yo, St. Isidore’s,’ … So we pulled up and the car was already gone and there were a couple people outside kind of standing around and it looked like they were helping pick up the rubble. So we walked up and we just kind of stepped in and helped pick up some of the rocks and sweep the sidewalk again, because Father Gale, he was there and he was like, ‘Yeah, we have a wedding tomorrow, so we want it to look nice,’ … It was just cool to see all these like, 2 a.m. people show up.”
McCaulley said around 30 students helped with cleanup after receiving a GroupMe message.
It was just honestly pretty cool to see,” McCaulley said. “Nobody asked, like the priests didn’t ask for anybody to come. But then you get to 1:32 [a.m.] and there’s like 30 people there who all just showed up in groups — nothing was coordinated.”
Manhattan resident Adam Schwinn said he was glad he and the students could lend a hand and “make the day better for each other.”
“I think it is just a really big testament to the amazing community that we’re in, that people are just willing to help, especially the fact that it’s at two in the morning that that happens and you just have friendly faces coming out of nowhere, not just to see the damage, but to actually get immediately to work, offer a helping hand,” Schwinn said. “And not only that, but offer positive attitudes and just share smiles around something that you know could be considered pretty bad and obviously could have been a lot more devastating.”
